Our Family History

Part 10: It always get worse

before it gets better.

Being released on the same day that I had surgery seemed a little odd to us all. Especially since it was 4 days before they could do the surgery but I was just glad to be home and have all of this behind me. That didn't last long by the next day I was back at the emergency room and readmitted to the hospital. Upon further tests they discovered that one of the gallstones had torn holes all in my pancreas. The pancreas works in a way that when it has a tear it will seal itself back off but this still leaves it weak. I was in the hospital for 22 days this time, back home for a few days and then back in the hospital for 10 days. It was a long and horrible process. I had to be very careful about what I ate and still do. For the next year I had to have a CT Scan every 6 weeks to ensure that my pancreas was healing properly. When it seals itself off it forms what they called pseudo cysts and they had to make sure that these dissolved and it healed itself up completely. After Matt's birth and all of this sickness I had lost a ton of weight but with the CT Scans they had to give me contrast and dye. The dye messed with my thyroid and within 3 months I had gained 60 lbs. In the middle of all of this, while I was back in the hospital for the 22 days, my kids were being taken care of by their grandparents. When Mom would come by with Matt, I knew that something was wrong but I couldn't figure it out and they weren't telling me anything. Finally they told me that he wasn't crying, wasn't making much of any noise except with every breath. When he would breathe, he whistled. So we got him to the doctor as soon as we could and he had a congenital laryngeal strider. Big word to say that his voice box wasn't hardened. They told us that it would take about 18 months for it to harden and that then he would have to play catch-up on learning how to talk. Most likely he would have to have a lot of speech therapy to get to where he needed to be. Getting used to the whistling was very difficult. Instead of listening for him to cry during the night I had to learn to sleep through the whistling and wake up when it stopped. It was hard for awhile. He started making a few sounds around 15 months and by 18 months was going full force. He learned how to talk quickly and did have a little speech therapy through the school when he was in Preschool but that was it. Thanks to God it all turned out alright in the end and I do give him credit for it all. That was without doubt the roughest year I have had so far in my life but we made it through and like the saying We are stronger for it.

Next: Stories from their childhood - Audrey